


Rose Lalonde, Asshole Cat

by Livvykitty



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Dangit, F/F, Mentions of alcoholism, Meteorstuck, Mild Hurt/Comfort, basically Rose is like a cat, i started writing this at 2am, its 4am, meowbeasts and all things there of, note: rose is not actually a cat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 05:22:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9164005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Livvykitty/pseuds/Livvykitty
Summary: In which Kanaya starts drawing strangely fitting parallels between Rose and meowbeasts and Rose unwittingly fits them all.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Ahahahahahaha I am so flipping tired man but I needed to write some quick RoseMary and this idea was born because I just love the idea of Rose being the Asshole Cat, and Kanaya dealing with her. Note: Rose is not actually a cat
> 
> It gets pretty angsty towards the end, so sorry about that!

To anyone brave enough to actually look through my things and find this-  _ run _ . I will be behind you with my lipstick in the next ten minutes. Whether due to time shenanigans or from rainbow drinker senses I may or may not have (what would you know of it?), there’s no need to know. Just run.

Recently, as I have begun to learn more about the humans, I find myself drawn in particular to the Rose human. This is for several reasons, what with her having written the guide that ensued our success during our Sgrub session and what with myself being her patron for so long and seeing her entire life, but there are other, more trivial things that I have noticed.

Most of these have to do with the fact that I suspect that Rose Lalonde may, in fact, be more meowbeast than human. 

To observe, I’ve begun keeping this journal of her habits, to attempt to parse out the reason for this. Can it be chalked up to a love of meowbeasts as a child? Are humans closely related to meowbeasts, as us trolls are more related to moths? Or is this simply all trite, something that I may or may not have begun to give myself something to do for the next couple of sweeps? Who honestly cares? It’s not as if this stupid thing is ever going to see the light of the moons.

 

**_Things That Show That Rose Lalonde May Be A Meowbeast_ **

 

  1. _Nocturnal Habits And Mammalian Biology_



I made passing mention of our schedules to the Rose human, and how lucky it was that she and the Dave human occupied the same schedule as us trolls. Of course, it would only make sense- we  _ are _ the Gods of their universe, so obviously some things would have had to have carried over into the intelligent species we made. 

Prior to this, all imprints we left upon humanity seemed to be cultural. The humans had a religion based around the idea of a rebel martyr fighting for the equality of the masses against an oppressive empire that then became the cause of his death. Rainbow drinkers featured heavily in their lore all over the world, and the humans invented stories of dragons despite never actually seeing a real one. They had fairies, a parallel to the Summoner, and even their own version of Twelfth Perigree, one that even tied in with the movement started by the martyr rebel killed by an empire. Much like ours.

As such, I was quite interested in seeing the biological similarities that might have resulted, since so far there seemed to be very few. Humans and trolls are shaped similarly and have limbs in similar places, but that’s about where the similarities end. Their hair is more akin to the fur of a lusus than the chitin of ours. Their body coverings are smooth and provide no purpose, whereas the thick collar of feathery chitin around my neck provides protection. Their blood color is contained only to their blood, and there’s only one blood color. Our species seem about as different as night and day, so having at least one similarity would have been interesting to see.

This was how the conversation went:

 

MYSELF: Rose What Exactly Do You Need To Sleep?

ROSE: It’s called a mattress- for millenia, my species has romanticized the object to the point of us needing one, subconsciously thrown into the wellspring of species wide subconscious that many a psychologist has gotten at.

ROSE: I never found the idea of all of humanity’s knowledge being programmed within us that satisfying, mostly because the idea of me being programmed with the knowledge of how to rap haunts my every waking moment, leaving me unable to even look my brother in the eye some days because I know, deep in my heart of hearts, that if it ever came down to it I would fucking destroy him at his best artform.

 

The Rose human has made it a point, recently, to simultaneously educate me about her species while fucking with me. I can never be sure whether she’s being serious or not, or if she even knows what she’s talking about. Another reasoning to her being a meowbeast?

 

MYSELF: Rose While I Do So Enjoy These Lovely Non Sequiturs Into The Machinations Of Your Mind And/Or The Collective Human Hivemind Of Unconscious Knowledge I Am Being Serious

MYSELF: It Would Be Nice To Know What The Hell A Mattress Actually Is For One Thing

ROSE: Oh, that? It’s mostly just a springy platform filled with springs and fluff to make it comfortable.

MYSELF: That Sounds Like a Copulation Platform

ROSE: A what? 

MYSELF: It’s… Just A Mattress I Suppose

MYSELF: At The Very Least Now We Have The Gist Of It Meaning That We Can Bang Our Thinkpans Together Tonight Into A Fine Metallic Dust To Have Some For You Humans By Today

MYSELF: Honestly It’s A Lucky Thing That We All Have The Same Sleep Schedule

ROSE: Wait a moment- [Here she laughs a bit- it’s a very sudden, cute little giggle that I believe sounds suspiciously like a mewl]

ROSE: Kanaya, you got your times mixed up there it seems. Shouldn’t we be doing this today and sleeping tonight? Perhaps I’m not the only one on this meteor with a need for a… how was it you phrased it… copulation platform.

MYSELF: [Here I ignore the salacious eyebrow wiggle she gives me to focus on important matters] No I Mean Exactly What I Said

MYSELF: We Work Tonight, And Sleep By Day. Are Humans Not Nocturnal? How Are You And Dave Awake Right Now?

ROSE: Oh, that? We’re both just colossal fuck ups of sentient life forms with no goddamn clue how to get our lives together like we probably should.

ROSE: Don’t worry about that, though- that just makes it easier for us to plan.

And of course, Rose is right about that- this meteor is on its way to a destination, after all. After that, the copulation platforms were produced, and immediately after, I found the Rose human slumbering on one.

 

  1. _Seemingly Heightened Agility And Fast Reflexes_



Recently, Vriska has put in training regimens that everyone must follow unless they’d proven they didn’t need to. The only one who actively did so was Dave, who pinned her in a sword fight with a blade to her neck before leaving and not leaving his room for a full week.

I have watched the Rose human throughout her own training regimen, armed only with a pair of those needlewands and a gleam in her eye. To say what I’ve witnessed is outstanding would be putting it lightly- the human is not only skilled in combat, but at six sweeps has more grace and agility than I could ever hope to possess. It comes down mostly to differences in body and weapon- her needles are sharpened to a point, making them good standalone weapons even without the magic. Her body is small and round, allowing her to easily move through enemy attacks with ease while the fat kept on her frame seems to give her extra energy reserves. 

My own body is tall and thin in comparison, and my weapon is quite inelegant- a chainsaw is a heavy burden, but it’s brutally efficient in both killing the undead as well as murderers and giving me some muscle that may allow me to overpower some opponents in battle. We’re built for different specialties, but I’ll never tire watching her.

Deep in the lab, robots are kept, and recently we’ve been setting them to kill mode. I suspect that these were used for training, and their original purpose is perfect for us. The way she moves is fluid, weaving and ducking underneath blow after blow as they rain down on her from above and the right, as if she could dance away on light fronds. Rose plays the needles like she would a stringed instrument, stringing together robots with yarn and strings of energy and snapping their metallic necks with brutal efficiency.

The big ones pose no threat to her, despite her much smaller size. She bobs and flows out of the way, smiling coyly all the way as if she knows something that they, the machines that don’t have any kind of idea about knowing anything other than their programming, do not know. She runs and uses her flight capabilities to land on the shoulders of the biggest, wrapping the yarn around its neck and pulling on both needles before the telltale  _ snap _ of metal being crushed broke through the air. The behemoth was a massive mecha, ten feet tall, and yet Rose simply jumped off. I observed carefully, but she did not seem to fly. Instead, she flipped through the air before landing square on her feet, standing straight up after a moment as the robot slowly fell backwards.

Then she turns to me and gives a wink, and I can only hope that my luminescence is enough to cover my reaction.

 

  1. _Being Independent Of Others And Standoffish With Attention_



According to the human internet that I have dived into from time to time, humans are social creatures. Generally they form family units and circles with friends with which to surround themselves. Sometimes, this is true of Rose, and I may find her hanging upside down on a chair listening to her ‘brother’ ramble or talking over video chat to Jade late into the day to stave off loneliness. Other times, she seems mostly alone.

Most other times, I mean. It seems like more and more recently she’s been seeking me out in particular. We’ve talked quite a few times, bantered certainly and said stupid shit, but she is very slowly coming to me more often. Sometimes she comes to me while I read and sits by me, reading over my shoulder. Others, she might bring shitty leaf water which I then pretend to like drinking and snacks, declaring it a tea party or other such unprompted event. Still others, she just bolts from the room whenever I approach.

It is rather endearing. In some ways, it could be considered playing hard to get, though I am unsure of why she would feel the need to do that with friendship. I am only half hoping that that’s the case so that I do not misconstrue it as anything more- we’re going to be here on this hell of a rock for a few sweeps. We’ll be seeing much more of each other and only each other, so it would be easy to misconstrue certain gestures. Especially with a human as infuriating as Lalonde.

I once attempted to confront her about it, but then she deflected the topic.

 

MYSELF: Rose I Cannot Help But Receive Mixed Signals Here

MYSELF: Why Are You Sitting Here, Reading Over My Shoulder When We Have At Least Several Hundred More Books

ROSE: More books? I hadn’t noticed those. My poor human perception is alarmingly dull right this very moment.

MYSELF: Then Allow Me To Direct Your Attention Ten Feet To Your Left

MYSELF: If You Would Be So Kind As To Turn Your Head You May See The Very Obvious Bookcases Angrily Labeled And Organized By Karkat. It Is Especially Hard To Miss the Bold Grey Spray Painted Text Over The Tomes That He And Your Human Brother Defaced With Human Bulges.

ROSE: Hm. Those are rather prominent. It’s odd how I missed them. [Here she resumes looking over my shoulder] Do you mind turning the page? We’ve been on this passage for the last five minutes and I want to see where Wisenn takes this.

 

  1. _Attention Mongering_



Over the past five months Rose and myself have become exceedingly familiar with one another. She no longer feels the need to ‘play hard to get’, as it were, but now has moved on to trying to find where I am at every living moment and demand attention. Not outright, of course, in most cases, but it’s become very difficult to escape and update this.

Sometimes it happens after practice, where she’ll bandage my wounds and lick her own, then try to refuse my offer of medical care before allowing me to help. Sometimes I’ll be in the middle of something utterly domestic, and then she’ll siddle somewhere close to me and do that same task as well. I’ll be sewing a new skirt from the mixed, strange feeling fabric I alchemized and she’ll be right there, picking at the frayed bits and cheekily remarking about how it’d look better in plaid or polka dots or some other inane thing. 

I would be lying if I said that I didn’t enjoy these times, though. Considering the fact that no one needs to read this, no one will know I said this, but I enjoy these times immensely. At about six months, I began to demand attention too, and ended up bearing witness as Rose wrote and sketched out some characters she had in mind, or video chatted to keep up relationships, or went about preparing food or gossipping with Karkat. 

At month seven it got to the point where we were both verbal with our attention needs, mostly as a joke among the both of us. Just recently, Rose had been quite silly and just seemed to confirm my hypothesis of her being some sassy feline. Mostly because she had somehow wormed her way onto my lap.

 

MYSELF: Rose I Am Trying To Read And You Are Making It Very Difficult

ROSE: Oh, am I? That’s wonderful, because that was the intended result of my action. Yet again I move yet another pawn into position with stealthy precision, ready to take your King in this chess game of relations.

MYSELF: Rose This Is Highly Uncalled For And Frankly Rude Because I Didn’t Agree To Any Kind Of Game, Chess Or Otherwise

MYSELF: I Am Up To My Horns In Games Rose

MYSELF: Do Not Add More To My Burden My Shackles Already Burn Enough As Is

ROSE: Is that a reference to your Troll Jesus?

MYSELF: Technically, Your Jesus Is A Reference To Our Signless, So ‘Is That A Reference To My Human Signless’ Would Be More Appropriate To Ask

ROSE: [Here she rolls onto her back, staring up at me] I thought you said you were done playing games.

MYSELF: I Am; That Was Not A Game, It Was An Observation. It Would Be Nice If We Could Stop Playing Games Though.

ROSE: As you wish. Say, what page are you on?

MYSELF: 76. Why?

ROSE: I’ll make sure to remember that. [She then proceeds to knock the book out of my hand] Now that the game is officially over, let’s stop dancing around the dumpster fire here- pay attention to me.

MYSELF: Rose This Seems To Be More Game Playing

ROSE: Is not. I am being very clear with what I’m saying, correct? I would like attention and don’t feel like playing coy to get it like the usual. I adore our games, Kanaya, but sometimes someone must be firm.

MYSELF: You Say That As If You’re The One Doing Me A Favor, Even Though You Just Knocked My Book Out Of My Hands. Where Will I Know Where I Am Now

ROSE: Page 76. Now get to it please, Maryam- I’m dying from lack of affection, and you just know how fragile my poor, human social species can be. Truly, a tragedy that something so fragile should have to exist within my fetid corpse of a being at all.

MYSELF: I’ll Say.

 

  1. _Cuddling/Imprinting_



I believe that Nepeta had informed me sometime along the line that meowbeasts had an incredible propensity for rubbing themselves against those they held deep affections for and wanted to imprint with, and Rose seems to be no exception, though I have yet to see if she does this with anyone else since she seems to spend her time exclusively with me nowadays.

After all the time we spent inserting each other into our lives, and with the frank boldness of Rose demanding attention occasionally and my own tendency to get back at her by demanding that much more attention, physical contact would be the next natural step.

It started slowly towards the end of month seven. She lay her head in my lap or on my shoulder, and occasionally we would find ourselves holding hands. I never consciously gave my fingers permission to do that with her fingers, but it still happened and somehow felt just as natural as anything. We would be watching a movie, or reading a book, or sewing or knitting together and she would somehow gravitate towards my side like a moth attracted to a particularly strong flame. If I didn’t do the same, I might have found it strange.

Our lips never touched each other’s, which is somewhat of a shame. I rather would have liked that.

But whatever is happening between us is strange, new, and somewhat terrifying for myself. I’ve felt care like this before for another person, but the idea of it actually being reciprocated is… strangely, as terrifying as it is wonderful. 

But I have misconstrued feelings before for a light player and I will not misconstrue them again, if it means breaking this strange, fragile thing that’s developing between the both of us.

 

  1. _Strangely Flipping The Switch_



I haven’t seen Rose in three days.

As I write this, it seems as though she’s avoiding me for some reason. I thought that things were going well, but I suppose I was wrong.

After I wrote the previous part, Rose began to come back again, sometimes never leaving my block. These days she clings, tighter than she might have before, but it means more contact, something that oddly enough I’ve found myself rather starved of as of late. While I’ve tried talking to the others, we don’t have the same level of intimacy as Rose and myself. Rose, who fights so well and is so strangely beautiful in a soft, alien way and before couldn’t keep off of me. Rose, who began avoiding me for a couple of hours every day, while she thought I was asleep.

I am concerned, but I won’t press just yet. I still don’t know if I have the authority to.

 

7. _ Sleeping Habits _

I found her asleep on top of the bookcase this evening.

That seems to be a recurring trend that’s been happening the last few weeks- sometimes, I’ll find her fast asleep in the oddest places. Sometimes she’ll end up someplace somewhat normal, like the living block’s multiple person seater or at a table, but then I find her in places like this, on top of a bookcase at early in the goddamn evening that makes me do a double take and wonder,  _ What In The Freshly Gardened And Watered Hell _ .

It has begun to get slightly ridiculous, really. A small list of places she’s ended up asleep have thus far included:

 

  * In a testing tube 
  * In the ablution trap
  * Draped over the alchemiter pad while I was trying to alchemize some coffee
  * Behind an empty recuperacoon
  * Inside a closet
  * Multiple times
  * She just really seems to like sleeping in closets for some bizarre reason
  * On top of that same bookcase now that i think about it
  * Is she falling asleep in these places on purpose?!



 

8 _. Soporifics_

It has come to my attention, recently, that some of the strange behavior is beginning to add up in a very uncomfortable way. Today was the first time I saw Rose imbibed upon human soporific, acting much like a meowbeast with their complementary herbs would.

I also found out that she had been hiding it for over three months. We’ve been here for one human year by now- why did she feel the need to hide something so serious? Is it, in some way, dangerous? It seems dangerous, in some way. Rose is normally all sharp wit and coy glances and slightly clingy, slightly flustered actions at times. This is like some strange, watered down version. An imitation Rose. An impostor.

She speaks in a slurred tone, her tongue heavy, a mockery of former laughter and eloquence. She moves in a slow, clambering way, an empty echo of former deadly grace. She touches me, but even that is strange and hollow, as if it’s not quite right. The careful thing between us, the thing that we nursed together and gently grew like a delicate piece of a glass sculpture cracks. It doesn’t break, but. It still sends a small shard through my thoratic cavity, because why would she hide this? Why wouldn’t she tell someone, or show someone? Why spend late nights alchemizing soporific with no one to see and holing herself up to drink herself into a stupor? 

She attempted to explain. I still didn’t understand.

I do not believe that I will be continuing this journal.


End file.
